“A new spin on the post-apocalypse genre. One you won’t soon forget.” –Garrett Cook, author of A God of Hungry Walls

There is a grocery store. The last grocery store in the world. It stands alone in the middle of a vast wasteland that was once our world. The open sign is still illuminated, brightening the black landscape. It can be seen from miles away, even through the poisonous red ash. Every night at the exact same time, the store comes alive. It becomes exactly as it was before the world ended. Its shelves are replenished with fresh food and water. Ghostly shoppers walk the aisles. The scent of freshly baked breads can be smelled from the rust-caked parking lot. For generations, a small community of survivors, hideously mutated from the toxic atmosphere, have survived by collecting goods from the store. But it is not an easy task. Decades ago, before the world was destroyed, there was a terrible thing that happened in this place. A group of armed men in brown paper masks descended on the shopping center, massacring everyone in sight. This horrible event reoccurs every night, in the exact same manner. And the only way the wastelanders can gather enough food for their survival is to traverse the killing spree, memorize the patterns, and pray they can escape the bloodbath in tact.

]]>https://carltonmellick.com/2016/10/07/out-now-the-terrible-thing-that-happens/feed/0carltonmellickterriblethingthathappens15th Anniversary of SATAN BURGERhttps://carltonmellick.com/2016/07/06/15th-anniversary-of-satan-burger/
https://carltonmellick.com/2016/07/06/15th-anniversary-of-satan-burger/#respondWed, 06 Jul 2016 17:23:04 +0000http://carltonmellick.com/?p=1857]]>15 years ago, my first novel SATAN BURGER was published. When it came out I really didn’t expect it to do well. I wrote it for fun, just for myself, not expecting anyone would ever even read it. I mean it’s basically just about a group of 20-year-olds who get jobs working at a Satan-themed fast food franchise as the world is ending. It’s not exactly the most commercial concept. Yet for some utterly strange reason that I still can’t even slightly comprehend the book did well. Really well. It actually found an audience big enough to launch my career. A year or so after its release I was able to quit my job and write full time which was something I never thought possible, especially not at such a young age (I was barely old enough to buy beer at the time). 15 years and 50 books later, I’m still here, still writing, and it’s all thanks to this book. I pretty much owe everything to Satan Burger and the fans who supported it over the years.

The 15th Anniversary Edition of SATAN BURGER is now available at amazon. It’s got an introduction by one of my heroes, John Skipp, who was a major influence on me when I was a teenager (and still is today). It’s also got illustrations by Ryan Ward, an underground artist who sent me fan art for the book years ago that I loved so much that I asked him to illustrate the whole book. And there’s also a new forward that I’ve written detailing the history of the book over the past 15 years.

If you haven’t read the book before or you want to get a more collectible edition, check out the anniversary edition at amazon.com

When Satan Burger was first being passed around among teenage punks and fans of weird art and film, there was nothing else like it. A book of rebellious spirit that simplistically captured the postmodern malaise of a culture obsessed with consumerism. It quickly gained an underground following, was transcribed by fans and bootlegged online, was translated into Russian and made its way around the world attracting the attention of readers bored with typical mainstream fare. Combining a satirical wit and style on par with legendary humorists such as Kurt Vonnegut and Russell Edson with the crazy punk ethos of cult film directors such as Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, and Takashi Miike, this was a book overflowing with so many new ideas and absurd philosophies that it not only launched the career of underground author Carlton Mellick III, but inspired an entire literary movement.

For the fifteenth anniversary of the release of this Bizarro Fiction classic, Eraserhead Press is thrilled to present this special hardcover edition, featuring an introduction by splatterpunk legend John Skipp, illustrations by Ryan Ward, and a new preface by the author.

Satan Burger explores a new kind of apocalypse. Not an apocalypse caused by disease or nuclear war, but an apocalypse of boredom. A plague of monotony has spread across the countryside, sucking all passion and inspiration out of everyone over the age of twenty-five, leaving only the disenfranchised youth to fend for themselves in a world crumbling around them. Featuring a narrator who sees his body from a third-person perspective, a man whose flesh is dead but his body parts are alive and running amok, an overweight messiah, the personal life of the Grim Reaper, a race of women who feed on male orgasms, and a motley group of squatter punks that team up with the devil to find their place in a world that doesn’t want them anymore.

Ethan is in love with the weird girl in school. The one with the twitchy eyes and spiders in her hair. The one who can’t sit still for even a minute and speaks in an odd squeaky voice. The one they call Spiderweb.

Although she scares all the other kids in school, Ethan thinks Spiderweb is the cutest, sweetest, most perfect girl in the world. But there’s a problem. Whenever they go on a date at the Dairy Queen, her whole fucking face explodes. He’s not sure why it happens. She just gets so excited that pressure builds under her skin. Then her face bursts, spraying meat and gore across the room, her eyeballs and lips landing in his strawberry sundae.

At first, Ethan believes he can deal with his girlfriend’s face-exploding condition. But the more he gets to know her, the weirder her condition turns out to be. And as their relationship gets serious, Ethan realizes that the only way to make it work is to become just as strange as she is.

]]>https://carltonmellick.com/2016/04/27/out-now-every-time-we-meet-at-the-dairy-queen-your-whole-fucking-face-explodes/feed/1carltonmellickQuicksand House in Spanish and Italianhttps://carltonmellick.com/2016/04/27/spanish-and-italian-editions-of-quicksand-house/
https://carltonmellick.com/2016/04/27/spanish-and-italian-editions-of-quicksand-house/#commentsWed, 27 Apr 2016 09:29:50 +0000http://carltonmellick.com/?p=1804]]>My novel “Quicksand House” has recently been translated into Spanish and Italian. Both editions are available now.

]]>https://carltonmellick.com/2016/04/27/spanish-and-italian-editions-of-quicksand-house/feed/3carltonmellickOUT NOW: “BIO MELT”https://carltonmellick.com/2015/10/28/out-now-bio-melt/
https://carltonmellick.com/2015/10/28/out-now-bio-melt/#respondThu, 29 Oct 2015 01:42:26 +0000http://carltonmellick.com/?p=1786]]>My 48th book, BIO MELT, is now available. This is one of the longer and darker novels I’ve written, along the lines of Tumor Fruit, Zombies and Shit, and Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland. I hope you check it out.

Nobody goes into the Wire District anymore. The place is an industrial wasteland of poisonous gas clouds and lakes of toxic sludge. The machines are still running, the drone-operated factories are still spewing biochemical fumes over the city, but the place has lain abandoned for decades.

When the area becomes flooded by a mysterious black ooze, six strangers find themselves trapped in the Wire District with no chance of escape or rescue. Banding together, they must find a way through the sea of bio-waste before the deadly atmosphere wipes them out. But there are dark things growing within the toxic slime around them, grotesque mutant creatures that have long been forgotten by the rest of civilization. They are known only as clusters–colossal monstrosities made from the fused-together body parts of a thousand discarded clones. They are lost, frightened, and very, very hungry.

]]>https://carltonmellick.com/2015/10/28/out-now-bio-melt/feed/0carltonmellickbiomelt2Italian Editionshttps://carltonmellick.com/2015/10/21/italian-editions/
https://carltonmellick.com/2015/10/21/italian-editions/#respondThu, 22 Oct 2015 00:33:32 +0000http://carltonmellick.com/?p=1783]]>Here’s a complete list of Italian editions of my books published through Vaporteppa Publishing. They include: Cannibals of Candyland, Armadillo Fists, Cuddly Holocaust, The Handsome Squirm, Village of the Mermaids, Kill Ball, The Haunted Vagina, The Morbidly Obese Ninja and War Slut.

]]>https://carltonmellick.com/2015/10/21/italian-editions/feed/0carltonmellickI Cannibali di CandylandPugni di ArmadilloApocalisse PelucheLa Marcia CarnaleIl-Villaggio-delle-SireneKill-BallVagina-InfestataIl-Ninja-Morbosamente-ObesoPuttana-GuerraOUT NOW: Clownfellashttps://carltonmellick.com/2015/08/07/out-now-clownfellas/
https://carltonmellick.com/2015/08/07/out-now-clownfellas/#respondSat, 08 Aug 2015 01:16:20 +0000http://carltonmellick.com/?p=1774]]>My new book, CLOWNFELLAS, is now available from Random House Hydra. I had a blast writing this book. I hope you check it out.

In a topsy-turvy world where clowns are killers and crooks, Little Bigtop is a three-ring circus of crime, and no syndicate is more dangerous than the Bozo family. From the wildly original mind of Carlton Mellick III comes the short-story collection ClownFellas—an epic mob saga where life is cheap and the gags will slay you.

For years, the hard-boiled capos of the Bozo family have run all of the funny business in Little Bigtop, from the clown brothels to the illegal comedy trade. But hard times have befallen the Bozos now that Le Mystère, the French clown Mafia, has started moving in and trying to take over the city. If that weren’t enough, they’ve got to deal with the cops, the Feds, the snitches, the carnies, the mysterious hit man Mr. Pogo, and the mutant clowns over in the Sideshow district. With the odds stacked against them, the Bozos must fight to survive . . . or die laughing.

“The most original novelist working today? The most outrageous? The most unpredictable? These aren’t easy superlatives to make; however, Carlton Mellick may well be all of those things, behind a canon of books that all irreverently depart from the form and concepts of traditional novels, and adventure the reader into a howling, dark fantasyland of the most bizarre, over-the-top, and mind-warping inventiveness. In my opinion, ClownFellas is his best work to date.” —Edward Lee, author of City Infernal and Header

“Carlton Mellick III goes past silly, through weird, detours around dumb, blasts through bizarre, and gets to a place where the normal physics of narrative no longer apply. You will never be the same.”—Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and Homeland.

“I rarely enjoy clowns—which is ironic since I’ve been one for over four decades—but ClownFellas is great on so many levels, irony being one of them. What can I say besides I love it! Great read, and funny as hell . . . I have been accused of being unfunny before, and after the trial I had to enter the Witless Protection Program. This is funny!”—Barry Lubin, aka Grandma, longtime Big Apple Circus clown

“If Martin Scorsese and Ronald McDonald had a baby, this would be it . . . Each story is clever, multi-layered, and filled with witty dialogue . . . A must-read.” —This Is Horror

]]>https://carltonmellick.com/2015/08/07/out-now-clownfellas/feed/0carltonmellickclownfellasOUT NOW: “As She Stabbed Me Gently in the Face”https://carltonmellick.com/2015/02/01/out-now-as-she-stabbed-me-gently-in-the-face/
https://carltonmellick.com/2015/02/01/out-now-as-she-stabbed-me-gently-in-the-face/#respondSun, 01 Feb 2015 07:59:54 +0000http://carltonmellick.com/?p=1771]]>My new serial killer book, As She Stabbed Me Gently in the Face, is now available. I hope you check it out.

Oksana Maslovskiy is an award-winning artist, an internationally adored fashion model, and one of the most infamous serial killers this country has ever known. She enjoys murdering pretty young men with a nine-inch blade, cutting them open and admiring their delicate insides. It’s the only way she knows how to be intimate with another human being. But one day she meets a victim who cannot be killed. His name is Gabriel–a mysterious immortal being with a deep desire to save Oksana’s soul. He makes her a deal: if she promises to never kill another person again, he’ll become her eternal murder victim.

What at first seems like the perfect relationship for Oksana quickly devolves into a living nightmare when she discovers that Gabriel enjoys being killed by her just a little too much. He turns out to be obsessive, possessive, and paranoid that she might be murdering other men behind his back. And because he is unkillable, it’s not going to be easy for Oksana to get rid of him.
As She Stabbed Me Gently in the Face is a metaphor for a bad relationship, told in the form of a sociopathic killer’s affair with an even more sociopathic victim. From the mind of Wonderland Book Award winner Carlton Mellick III, author of Hungry Bug and Quicksand House, comes one of the strangest and most gruesome love stories ever put to print.

]]>https://carltonmellick.com/2015/02/01/out-now-as-she-stabbed-me-gently-in-the-face/feed/0carltonmellickasshestabbedmegentlyinthefaceOUT NOW: “Sweet Story”https://carltonmellick.com/2014/07/30/out-now-sweet-story/
https://carltonmellick.com/2014/07/30/out-now-sweet-story/#commentsWed, 30 Jul 2014 10:10:12 +0000http://carltonmellick.com/?p=1749]]>My new book, Sweet Story, is now available. Although it’s on the short side, it’s one of my favorite things I’ve written this year. I hope you check it out.

Sally is an odd little girl. It’s not because she dresses as if she’s from the Edwardian era or spends most of her time playing with creepy talking dolls. It’s because she chases rainbows as if they were butterflies. She believes that if she finds the end of the rainbow then magical things will happen to her–leprechauns will shower her with gold and fairies will grant her every wish. But when she actually does find the end of a rainbow one day, and is given the opportunity to wish for whatever she wants, Sally asks for something that she believes will bring joy to children all over the world. She wishes that it would rain candy forever. She had no idea that her innocent wish would lead to the extinction of all life on earth.

Sweet Story is a children’s book gone horribly wrong. What starts as a cute, charming tale of rainbows and wishes soon becomes a vicious, unrelenting tale of survival in an inhospitable world full of cannibals and rapists. The result is one of the darkest comedies you’ll read all year, told with the wit and style you’ve come to expect from a Mellick novel.

]]>https://carltonmellick.com/2014/07/30/out-now-sweet-story/feed/2carltonmellicksweetstory2OUT NOW: “The Tick People”https://carltonmellick.com/2014/04/16/out-now-the-tick-people/
https://carltonmellick.com/2014/04/16/out-now-the-tick-people/#commentsWed, 16 Apr 2014 19:51:40 +0000http://carltonmellick.com/?p=1742]]>I’m happy to announce that my 44th book is now available. Unlike my last few books, this is a short quick read and somewhat similar in tone to my early bizarro novellas like Teeth and Tongue Landscape, Steel Breakfast Era or Ugly Heaven. I hope you check it out.

They call it Gloom Town, but that isn’t its real name. It is a sad city, the saddest of cities, a place so utterly depressing that even their ales are brewed with the most sorrow-filled tears. They built it on the back of a colossal mountain-sized animal, where its woeful citizens live like human fleas within the hairy, pulsing landscape. And those tasked with keeping the city in a state of constant melancholy are the Stressmen-a team of professional sadness-makers who are perpetually striving to invent new ways of causing absolute misery.

But for the Stressman known as Fernando Mendez, creating grief hasn’t been so easy as of late. His ideas aren’t effective anymore. His treatments are more likely to induce happiness than sadness. And if he wants to get back in the game, he’s going to have to relearn the true meaning of despair.

Like James and the Giant Peach combined with one of David Cronenberg’s early body horror films, The Tick People is a charming children’s fable that quickly devolves into a grotesque sexual nightmare.